


Life After Death

by moonix



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: Everyone Is Gay, Ghislain has a knack for bringing people back from the dead, M/M, Raphael is a poetic disaster, Surprise survivors, some angst i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 05:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4817609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Steelhands, Bamf Pirate Ghislain brings back another survivor from the depths of a remote Ke'Han war prison, to be nursed back to health by the remaining airmen on the Greylace Estate, one of which is rather more invested than the others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life After Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvanderwon (missbysshe)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=luvanderwon+%28missbysshe%29).



> Warnings for mentions of torture and some description of a character being held in Ke'Han prison, though no graphic violence, and the story deals mainly with the aftermath and recovery. If you think any trigger warnings should be added here, let me know!
> 
> Most canon deaths are still dead, sorry. Also sorry for any medical inaccuracies. The M rating is mainly for the above mentioned stuff.
> 
> And a slightly tongue-in-cheek warning for Ivory's brothers, who are big beardy nuisances as per usual. I apologise.

**Ivory**

 

They break two of his fingers before Ivory is moved to a different prison.

He doesn't know what happened to the others. Last he heard, Rook was in a cell somewhere on the same floor, cursing his lungs out, Volstovic words sharp and pungent like chlorine in the crawling air of the dungeons, but they blindfold him on the carriage, and Ivory's new cell is cramped and empty, and so, so quiet.

The first thing Ivory does is tear a strip of cloth from his vest and use it to tape his broken fingers together. He's set the bones as best as he could in the dark of the dungeons, a swatch of pain fanning out red and purple behind his eyelids, biting down on the sturdy leather collar of his jacket to muffle the sounds of his private agony. They don't feel terribly out of place, which is a comfort, albeit a small one.

Mostly, the Ke-Han leave him alone at the new place.

Once a day, he gets food; sometimes twice if they remember. There's a slab of stone in one corner with a threadbare blanket serving as a bed, two metal buckets in another. Ivory collects rainwater that drips from the ceiling in the clean one. Whenever the guards feel like it, they let him have something like a cold shower; sometimes there's soap, and Ivory can wash his clothes and clean his teeth. The worst part is when he has to go back to his draughty cell and lay the clothes out to dry. It takes a long time.

As soon as his fingers are healing, Ivory takes one of the small chalky stones he uses to file down his nails to draw a keyboard on the edge of his bed. He's spent a while rehearsing endless melodies in his head down in the dungeons, now he can get the finger workout as well, even if the actual sound is still lacking. His left hand is more or less out of commission due to the fractures, but it's better than nothing by a long shot.

He keeps busy.

The smallest things can grow the longest shadows if you find the right angle to look at them. Ivory makes his meals last for as long as he can, eating slowly and carefully so his stomach won't rebel. He rotates some of his clothes, washes his socks and underwear when it rains, airs out the other things and shakes out the blanket. Every day, he tries to wash himself a little with the water from the clean bucket, and he plays one melody, over and over again until his fingers ache from stiff exercise and cold stone. At night, because he can't sleep, he permits himself to relive a single pleasant memory, of home and his brothers, of Cassiopeia, of Raphael; only one per night, so they don't get tainted too much with the soot-smear of prison misery. In the morning, he folds his blanket and tucks the sweet remnants of these memories safely away inside to start over from scratch.

Counting days would be a futile endeavour. Ivory counts regrets instead: not saying goodbye. Only ever playing Raphael's favourite tunes when he wasn't there to hear. Staying home that night when the airmen went out together one last time to celebrate the fact that they were still alive. Being alive. Not telling Raphael. Never learning how to read and write. The look on Balfour's face when Rook told him in no uncertain terms that he would never live up to his brother while they'd all stood by and watched. There's a regret for every time of day, and Ivory forces himself to make peace with all of them, one by one. Sometimes it works. Sometimes he only deludes himself.

But then, a lot of things in here are rooted in self-delusion.

Ivory tries to be grateful for every learning experience. Learning that what bothers him the most isn't the gnawing hunger, or the isolation, or the uncertainty; it's the spiteful, creeping cold that he can't shake off no matter how much he moves, and the stale taste in his mouth, and never feeling clean. It's not the thought that he might die here; it's the thought that he might spend the rest of his remaining life here, however long that will be. It's not the nightmares, but the insomnia; not the homesickness, but all the ridiculous things he misses, like the smell of hot tea in the morning and the sound of Raphael's voice and the vibrations of a cat's purr under his hands.

It's not the absence of other people, it's the absence of Raphael, and the never-ending question: _is he alive or is he dead?_

Some days, Ivory is sure that Raphael survived, and the thought that they're both still inhabiting one and the same world is comforting, no matter how bleak and cold Ivory's current slice of that world may be. Other days, Ivory feels like a night sky without stars, a mere fiery thumbswipe left behind by the echo of Raphael's existence where Ivory's heart still carries its last traces before it burnt out on the battlefield, or somewhere deep down in a dungeon, perhaps just one floor up or down from where Ivory was curled up in a ball himself, consumed by pain.

His fingers stop throbbing, which is how Ivory knows he's been here a while.

He feels feverish more often than not now. The rain rarely lets up. Ivory counts drops into his bucket from his perch on the bed, shivery and coughing, and so very tired. At night, he conjures up the spectres of his brothers, Maxwell on one side of his bed, Sebastian on the other; with their teasing cat-eye smiles and their infinite wisdom, to keep him company through the darkest hours. When his lungs are clogged and burning with ice, Cassiopeia's voice blows smoke rings in his ears and tells him to stop being a wuss, it's only dragon fire. Other airmen blaze to life with the sunrise and blow away in the draught.

If only he could remember any of Raphael's poems.

And then, one day, the door of his cell is lifted clean out of its hinges, and Ivory wishes he had the energy to turn around and look Ghislain in the eye as he's wrapped in a warm, heavy cloak and lifted off the bed, because it feels so real, and it scares him that for the first time since he came here, he's getting his hopes up.

Then he passes out.

~

His first few memories of the boat are sketchy. He remembers being bathed and clothed, remembers a tarnished spoon shaking violently in his hand and spilling soup, remembers the thrumming, medicinal smell of chamomile in his nostrils and the protective cocoon of his hammock swaying under a starry night sky, skimmed and sour with the clouds combed out by the ocean breeze. He remembers Ghislain humming in the small kitchen over a pot of porridge, and he remembers Raphael's name, but mostly, he remembers sleeping, or rather, waking up.

Sometimes Ghislain sits with him when he's trembling with the echoes of a nightmare or nauseous from the food. One particularly bad night, Ivory pukes his guts out in his hammock, and Ghislain simply lifts him out of the mess and sits him in a tub of warm salt water while he rinses the hammock out among the waves and hangs it up to dry. Ivory wishes he could be wrung out like this, too, but instead he cowers in his tub and stifles his sobs in the back of his hand, heaving up bile.

Slowly, though, the salt and the wind scrub the worst of prison off his body, and he can hold down more and more of the simple, nourishing meals that Ghislain cooks with whatever he finds at the markets of the towns they stop at every now and then. Ivory never gets off the boat. He sits on deck in the shade, nestled in blankets and sleep, one of the kitchen knives clutched loosely in his hands out of sight, until Ghislain comes back, trailing a sack of potatoes, a bright green shock of coriander leaves, a pearly, translucent smattering of fish scales, and sunlight tousled in his hair. Ivory wears the clothes he gives him, some of them bought cheap off a vendor, some salvaged from an old chest somewhere in the bowels of the boat. His favourite is a large, woolly cardigan with elbow patches and pockets on the sides that made Ghislain tell him the story of how he found Raphael in some remote fishing village and brought him home, same as him now, and how Raphael used to wear that cardigan around the boat all the time, but then apparently forgot to take it with him when they arrived.

They'd been in rather a hurry then, is all Ivory can divine from his words, and Raphael was always scatter-brained, forever ransacking the Airman in search of a missing book or trinket or item of clothing.

He doesn't know how long they've been on the boat. The weather at sea spans across all seasons, and while Ivory didn't want to know when he was still a prisoner, he is slowly starting to crave some sort of anchor amid the bucking waves and the undulating sky. He just needs to figure out how to ask Ghislain what day of the week it is. Not even the month and date, just something small, non-threatening, comforting: look, it's a Monday, everyone else is probably having a shit day too, Ivory's not alone. But he can't, not yet. He's not sure he even still has a voice.

They arrive in Thremedon on a damp, overcast day that is like soggy parchment and tea with too much milk. Ivory shuffles on deck with his blankets clutched around him, and Ghislain hands him a cup of ginger tea and this fact: that they're almost home, now. Ivory sits on the floor and drinks his tea and watches the distant lights of the city loom up out of the mist like a many-eyed creature. Home, for now, means that he will have to get off the boat soon. He's not sure he can deal with that yet.

It is late afternoon when the boat comes to a rocky, fizzy rest in the harbour, like a sleeping mermaid giggling to herself from time to time. Ghislain pats it fondly, and then he turns to Ivory, says “ready?” in his rumbling deep sea voice and picks him up, just like that.

“We've got a meeting with the chief,” Ghislain informs him as he carries him off the boat slung over his shoulder. It's an odd feeling, being carried; so very different to riding Cassiopeia. Ivory wriggles a bit, but they've already reached a carriage, and Ghislain manoeuvres him around so he's wriggling right inside onto one of the seats and slams the door. Ivory makes a frustrated sigh and slides down until he's almost crouching on the floor: the last time he rode a carriage, his fingers were freshly broken, and he hadn't seen daylight for weeks.

The carriage dips as Ghislain ducks inside, then lurches as the horses start pulling it uphill, aiming for the candy cane squires and shabby graffiti of Charlotte.

Ivory makes it about halfway through the journey until they have to pull over so he can throw up in the gutter.

 

**Ghislain**

 

Ghislain is still full of rage by the time they get off the boat, but he's tucked it all away in a cave deep in the icy mountains of his self-restraint for the benefit of Ivory's recovery while they are at sea. Now, with Ivory asleep on the carriage seat next to him, pale and trembly like one of those little white birds they breed in Arlemagne, it rolls over Ghislain like a glacier, slowly and inexorably, and by the time he's getting out of the carriage with Ivory once again slung over his shoulder and makes his way over to where Adamo is waiting with his jaw and fists clenched, Ghislain wants to smash something, something valuable and irreplaceable preferably.

“Delivery for the chief sergeant,” Ghislain says gruffly and nods at the sleeping boy cradled in his left arm. Ghislain doesn't actually know how old Ivory is, but he looks like twenty-five, tops, and that's boys for Ghislain, not nearly old enough to die a miserable death in some nameless Ke'Han prison. Adamo's mouth tightens, and he gestures for Ghislain to bring him inside. They're at the Margrave's house, the one with the Arlemagne prince, but there's no sight of him or his boy toy, and Ghislain carefully puts his quarry down on one of the chaise-longues and accepts a glass of smoky, leathery whisky from Adamo.

“So where'd you find him?” Adamo asks, leaning back against a cluttered desk, watching the minuscule but steady rise and fall of Ivory's chest out of the corner of his eye.

“Just outside Lapis,” Ghislain mutters. “Prison.”

Adamo nods like he's trying to discern the weight of his own jaw, and Ghislain explains about Ke'Han prisons, which aren't anything like the orderly affairs in Thremedon under Dmitri's rule or the old Volstovic gulags towering among the mountains in the East, but where a man can disappear off the face of the earth just as easily as when swept up by Arlemagnes' royal gendarmerie and whisked away to their swimming naval prisons. It was pure coincidence that Ghislain happened to meet one of the few men to have left a Ke'Han dungeon alive and intact in a dingy little bar in some nameless harbour when Adamo had sent him off after the last trickle of rumours about dragon parts being sold on the black market, and sheer dumb luck that Ghislain's drinking buddy for the night also happened to know where the late Ke'Han emperor had attempted to hide what remained of some of his most valuable prisoners of war when Lapis had been on the brink of falling.

“Wasn't expecting to find one alive, to tell you the truth,” Ghislain tells Adamo grimly, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. The Margrave's place is all fancy silks and leather, dark wood and small reading lamps dotted around every room that make it look like a swarm of fireflies is suspended in mid-air above every available seat and cushion. All the shelves and cabinets are crammed full with books and trinkets, a painful antithesis to the stark bareness of Ivory's cell, and Ghislain idly cracks his knuckles as he glances over Ivory's sleeping form curled up on the chaise-longue.

“Why'd they keep him so long, do you think?” Adamo muses. It is late afternoon, and the shadows on his face are growing long and taut like angry sea serpents.

“Guess they were just carrying out the old orders, on account of not getting any new ones,” Ghislain says and shrugs. Then he twitches his head in Ivory's direction. “There's no immediate injuries as far as I could tell, not anymore anyway. But he's gonna need some medical attention, and a place to stay while he sleeps all that off. At the rate he's been going, I figure that might take a while.”

“I'll have Roy send for someone,” Adamo agrees absently.

“Any family left?” Ghislain asks. A skinny black cat has nudged its way into the sitting room and jumps up on the arm of the chaise-longue, its curious eyes following Ivory's breathing pattern. Ghislain and Adamo are both watching it somewhat warily, but it doesn't do anything, just sits there like it's standing sentinel over the sleeping boy.

“Not much, if I remember correctly,” Adamo sighs, finally uncrossing his tightly laced arms. “A brother or two, I think. I might be able to dig up the old records and get an address. But for the time being, we need to set him up somewhere nearby, where he's gonna be properly looked after...”

“Let me take him to the Estate,” Ghislain says immediately, just as Ivory stirs awake: a feline slit of pale, open eyes that look like rain clouds ruffled by a sharp breeze, and a single twitch of long fingers in the embroidery of a sofa cushion. “Raph and I've got a spare room in the cottage, bed and all.”

Adamo looks sceptical, so Ghislain adds: “You know what Raphael's like, Chief. He ain't happy so long as he's got no one to fuss about. Bit like you, really.”

He doesn't mention that Raphael's name was one of the few things that seemed to startle a reaction out of Ivory on the boat that went beyond reaching for his knives or puking his guts out, or that Raphael's been miserable and lonely at the Estate even though he tries to tuck the tell-tale signs of that away between the pages of his books whenever Luvander or Balfour come to visit, or Laure knocks on their door with a bottle of wine and a pack of cards. He rather suspects Adamo knows about that last bit, anyway: Raphael's always been a shit liar.

“Antoinette's going to have my head on a platter,” Adamo mutters, fishing for some semblance of sanity with his thumbs in the corners of his eyes. Ghislain grins to himself.

There's a small eddy of noise downstairs as someone unlocks the front door, but Adamo doesn't seem perturbed by this, so it must be the Margrave and his boy. Ghislain goes back to leaning against the silk wallpaper while Adamo pours more whisky, and Ivory is still squinting at the black cat staring down at him from the backrest. Something's wrong with the cat's left front paw, it looks like it was broken once and didn't mend quite the way it was supposed to, but the cat still holds itself with such poise that it's hardly noticeable. They make a good match, even with Ivory's pale blond hair and the cat's pitch dark fur, or maybe all the more because of it.

When the door opens, it's only the Margrave's boy, freckly and tall, wishing them a good evening and asking if they would like to stay for dinner. Adamo nods, but Ghislain wants to get back to the Estate and settle Ivory in before nightfall, and besides, he's got a rather grim feeling about Raphael's inclination to feed himself when he's got no one else around to cook for. Hal frets a little under his heavy gaze, and then his eyes fall on the cat, and he gasps.

“Oh, you're not supposed to be here,” he wails, wringing his hands. “I don't even know how you got in this time, but Royston's going to have a sneezing fit if he so much as catches sight of you, so you better scram... come on now, off you go...”

He tries to half-heartedly shoo the creature off the backrest, but it only hunkers down squat and stays where it is. Slowly, one of Ivory's hands reaches up to run a finger over its small head, and the cat blinks its glittering eyes. Ivory slides his hand under its belly and scoops it up, cradling it close, then looks questioningly at Ghislain, now fully awake with his hair sticking up to one side and a gentle pillow crease down one cheek.

“That cat,” Ghislain says to Hal, who immediately snaps back to looking deeply apologetic, as he always does around the remaining airmen, like it's somehow his fault they came back when the others didn't. “You want her off your hands, by any chance?”

“Oh,” Hal whimpers, relieved now. “Yes, I'm afraid so. I wouldn't mind keeping her, honestly, it's just that Royston is allergic, and his sneezes have a habit of ending in combusted furniture... I've tried locking her out of the house but she just keeps coming back...”

“You're in luck, then,” Ghislain growls and nods at Ivory. “We're looking for a pet. Supposed to be therapeutic and all, right?”

Adamo frowns, but Ghislain can see the faint shimmer of a pleased smile around Ivory's mouth as he gently bundles the docile cat up in his cardigan, and he's spent enough time with the boy now to know that Ivory appreciates his frankness. If you're going to mop up another person's bodily fluids and have them try to scratch your eyes out in the night when you wake them from a nightmare, there's no use sugar-coating anything, is there?

Adamo sees them off into a carriage. They don't have much, just Ghislain's kitbag and Ivory's new cat, and neither Ghislain nor Adamo are the type of men who like to string out goodbyes, especially not when they're going to cross each other's paths at the Estate again sooner or later, anyway. Yet Ghislain can see Adamo standing by the curb for a long time, until his bulk is swallowed up by the distance and the approaching dusk, and Ghislain settles against the creaking leather seats and stretches his legs out in front of him. This time, Ivory doesn't fall asleep. He takes up less than a quarter of the space Ghislain does, coiled up awkwardly in the corner by the window, as if he's afraid of not getting enough air. After settling down, the cat tucks her front paws protectively into the crook of Ivory's elbow, and Ivory entertains himself trying to untangle a particularly stubborn knot in her fur with his thumb and index finger for the rest of the carriage ride.

He looks at peace, and Ghislain hums his appreciation. Therapeutic, indeed. Now he only needs to be right about Raphael.

 

**Ivory**

 

Ivory wakes up in a room with green painted walls and light wooden furniture, pastel sunlight spilled on the rug and a threadbare cotton silence draped haphazardly over the house and bunching in the corners. He's lying in an actual bed, a fluffy white comforter tucked in carefully around his body. There's the rug, mossy green, a shade deeper than the walls; a bookcase, half filled with books in various states of being currently read or having been abandoned mid-read, a chest of drawers next to the bed, and a small, simple desk with a chair and a quill, ink pot, and some paper lined up neatly on top.

As mornings go, this one is one of Ivory's better ones. He sinks a little further into the bed and spends a long time just observing the room: how the angle of the light changes, how the lace pattern of his own breathing fits itself seamlessly between the folds of silence. His mouth is dry, and there is the faint, constant agony of an empty stomach, and the keening ache of misaligned bones, inflamed lungs and muscles still locked up tight like angry jaws from months of sleeping on cold stone. Ivory takes stock of each and every one of them, like he's been doing every morning, but he gets interrupted by the quiet click of the door being pushed open.

“Oh,” Raphael says, the word cracking his mouth into a smile like the lid of a jar popping open, “you're awake, that's good.”

Ivory blinks a few times, wondering if he's going to throw up again, because there's metal and gunfire in his stomach when he looks at Raphael, who is alive, and bringing him breakfast. The tray rattles as Raphael sets it down on the chest of drawers: Raphael's hands are shaking.

“You weren't awake when Ghislain brought you in last night, so... hello, I guess. We put you up in the spare bedroom – this is our house, we're just outside Thremedon, in case Ghislain didn't tell you, I mean he doesn't talk that much and I don't know how much of the carriage ride you were awake for, so... anyway... I'm glad you're, that is, I'm glad you're alive.”

Ivory coughs and swallows painfully. There's a sudden soft weight on his legs as the black cat from yesterday jumps on the bed. Ivory struggles to free his hand and reaches down so she can rub her head against his knuckles while Raphael fusses with the tea.

“The Margrave Royston said to expect a physician to come by and check on you later today. I wasn't sure what you wanted for breakfast – I made crumpets because I remembered that you used to like those before, but there's toast as well if you prefer that, and some eggs and jam and... well, tea, of course,” Raphael says, gesturing at the tray and looking a little forlorn in his oversized shirt, with his hair damp and messy like a morning fog and his eyes rimmed in purple exhaustion. He worries at his too-long sleeves for a moment, then steps closer to the bed.

“Here, I'll help you sit up.”

His hands are very gentle. Ivory lets himself be coaxed upright, then leans back against the pillows that Raphael pats into shape for him and, once he's done coughing, accepts the cup of tea, cradling its warm round belly in his palms and letting the steam soften the tense frown on his face.

Raphael goes to draw the white curtains apart and open the window for some fresh air. The morning is damp, but tentatively sunny and calm, and Raphael breathes in deeply as he surveys the little garden outside. It's been newly tended, but some areas still sport signs of neglect and overgrowth, like someone's spent the last months battling weeds and trying to infuse it with new life and isn't finished with that quite yet.

“It's kind of my pet project,” Raphael confides when he sees Ivory craning his neck. “I've managed to plant a few things here and there. If you're feeling up to it, we can sit outside a bit later, there's deck chairs and all.”

Ivory coughs again, more out of feeling overwhelmed than an actual need, and then Raphael perches on the edge of his bed and helps him eat. Ivory manages one and a half of Raphael's home made crumpets, which are still warm and so delicious that his mouth waters even in-between bites, and he drinks almost the whole pot of tea under Raphael's pleased gaze, the flip side being that he really needs to use the bathroom when he's done. As soon as Raphael realises what he's trying to do, he helps him get up and leads him over to a small door, slowly, because Ivory's legs are trembly and feral like scared deer.

Back on the boat, in limbo between two worlds with only Ghislain's soothing, perpetually unfazed presence for miles on end, Ivory never felt self-conscious about anything. Now, though, as he stands in the narrow, low-ceilinged bathroom with the chipped enamel tub and the crooked water taps, tarnished sunlight sweeping like dust through the air and settling in the faded lace curtains in front of the tiny window, Ivory suddenly feels like a caged cat

Before Raphael can step into the room with him, Ivory quickly turns around and shuts the door between them, then leans against it and listens for Raphael's dejected footsteps to fade and the clatter of the breakfast tray being picked up and carried out of the room. Ivory manages to relieve himself, brush his teeth and wash his hands and face, but then he's so exhausted he has to sit down on the floor of the bathroom, curled in on himself with the towel still clutched in his hands, his lungs burning with exertion. Raphael finds him there when he comes back to check on him and hauls him back to bed without a word, stoically rubbing his back as Ivory coughs and retches blood and mucus into a handkerchief. The cat has slipped back under the bed again, alarmed by the noise.

“I'll make you some herbal tea,” is all Raphael says when he's done, and Ivory is grateful for the lack of platitudes or pointless, nervous worrying.

Ivory spends the rest of that day in bed. He sleeps, drinks whatever tea Raphael keeps bringing him, has a small lunch with Ghislain when he stops by around noon, and sleeps some more. The physician comes in the afternoon, a quiet, gentle woman with apologetic hands and few words, and Ivory still hates every second of the examination, flinches at every bit of skin uncovered and every prodding fingertip, looks away when she asks questions and half wishes with burning desire that Raphael had stayed in the room with him, half wants to throw up with sheer relief that he didn't. The physician leaves in a quiet cloud of murmured conversation with Raphael outside his door, and Ivory sleeps well into the evening, waking only when Raphael comes in with soup and toast and an array of medicine lined up on the tray in dark green bottles.

“I'm afraid it's too dark to go outside now,” he says around a smile. “But we can do that tomorrow, if the weather stays nice.”

The tray is laid out for two this time. Raphael drags the desk chair over to Ivory's bed and folds one leg underneath him, and only starts eating once he's made sure that Ivory's hands are steady enough to hold his soup bowl. It's a simple clear broth with cooked vegetables and fresh herbs, but somewhat more refined than the food Ghislain had on his boat, and lighter, too. Ivory stops short of licking out the bowl, but Raphael looks pleased nonetheless when he hands it back empty.

“You should give her a name,” Raphael tells him when he's cleared away the dishes and Ivory's cat comes slinking back in from where she's been prowling the garden. She tucks eagerly into the small pile of meat Raphael has put on a saucer for her, then climbs onto the top shelf of the bookcase and meticulously cleans herself while Raphael putters about below, re-stacking some of the books, drawing the curtains shut and making more tea, chattering away about inconsequential things. Ivory watches them both, fascinated, a fierce ache in the back of his skull at the overwhelming joy of having company and entertainment again after months of deprivation. He feels sweaty and sticky in his old clothes, but at least he's not hungry or cold.

The cat blinks down at him with her shimmering almond-shaped eyes, and for a split second Ivory thinks _Cassiopeia_ , but then he comes to his senses and calls her Almond instead. He looks questioningly at her, and Almond squeezes her eyes shut in quiet agreement.

If only he could tell Raphael.

 

**Raphael**

 

Raphael broke three cups and two saucers when Ghislain carried Ivory into their kitchen, asleep but very much alive after months of having been believed quite dead. The letter that one of Ghislain's pigeons had brought in advance had only told him, somewhat cheekily, to expect him back with a surprise guest who would be needing the spare bedroom and some clothes and medical attention. Raphael spent the days leading up to his return cleaning, stocking up on food and medicine, cooking and baking, and the night after pacing the house like a nervous ghost.

On the second morning, Raphael's hands are shaking so much that he breaks another cup, and Ghislain grumbles something about going into town later to buy a new set before he ducks outside into the drizzle to see if the new recruits need his help with the dragons today. They've long since abandoned the idea that the Estate needs any kind of human security – for one thing, no one ever comes here, anyway, and for another, it's quite well guarded by ancient magic already, plus some extra protection set up by Antoinette. As far as Raphael understands it, only people who are willingly taken onto the grounds by one of the current residents are even able to set foot onto the Estate. But there's other kinds of work for them – helping with the dragons, the new kids, or the training exercises, ground-keeping and repair work, gardening; whatever errands Adamo sends Ghislain off to do, and sometimes Antoinette needs a hand with something as well.

Raphael is _fine_ , he's happy, the Estate is beautiful and the work is engaging, so what if he hasn't finished a single book in over half a year? It'll pass.

But now he's got Ivory to look after. Ivory, who was always quiet and aloof and guarded; somehow different than the rest of them, and not just in the way Balfour was, either. Ivory, who Raphael has always been fascinated by, with his rare displays of precious, pointed humour, his piano playing which was always so much more vulnerable and open than he ever let himself be, his headaches and his imported green tea and his meticulous cleanliness.

Raphael surveys his breakfast tray. Yesterday's crumpets were a success, if the fact that Ivory didn't throw them up is any indication, which, judging by Ghislain's woeful expression when he was talking about his poor boat and its unfortunate track record of transporting seasick passengers, it is. Raphael doesn't want his breakfasts to be repetitive and boring though, and it's not like the crumpets strictly need using up, since Raphael himself has been stress-eating them all day yesterday, so he's going with buckwheat pancakes today, topped with banana slices and a spoonful of almond butter, and some ginger lemon tea with honey. They don't have green tea – yet – so he's still figuring out what other kinds Ivory likes. So far, he dutifully drank all of them, but Raphael thought he saw an inkling of a smile that one time he stuck a slice of lemon on the rim of his mug.

“Right,” he tells himself, tucking a few napkins under the fork and knife on the tray and taking a deep breath. “Here we go. Pull yourself together, man.”

He tries to make it sound like Ghislain, but it still echoes more pathetic than bracing, and he shakes his head at himself. Ivory needs him right now, or rather he needs breakfast and possibly a bath, since he fell asleep last night before Raphael had a chance to suggest it. He's very careful in carrying the tray over to Ivory's room after he found out the hard way that cats, apparently, have a habit of tripping you up in the most inconvenient of moments, and when he enters, Ivory is, once again, already awake.

“Good morning!” Raphael beams, and sets the tray down on the chest of drawers. “Did you sleep well? You were very quiet, you know. Ghislain said you have nightmares sometimes, but maybe not this time? I made pancakes.”

He's barely aware of what he's saying. Ivory looks tired and flushed, and Raphael cracks the window open for some fresh air and leans down to feel Ivory's forehead. The Margrave who came by yesterday said something about fevers, so Raphael is all stocked up in terms of medicine after a run to the nearest apothecary, just in case. He wrote down everything she said, from what to give him for his lungs to what kinds of food he needs, panic-stricken that he might make a mistake.

“Hmm, you feel a little hot,” Raphael murmurs, absent-mindedly smoothing the hair away from Ivory's forehead. “We should probably keep an eye on that. I was going to run you a bath after breakfast, actually, but maybe you should rest some more...”

Ivory abruptly sits up and shakes his head, casting a longing look at the bathroom. Raphael gently places the mug of tea in his hands, feeling guilty when they twitch away almost violently. They're rather stiff in the morning, and the physician said that some of his fingers were broken, by accident or more likely by design. While they're mended now, Raphael wonders if Ivory might let him massage some cream into them to help ease the residual pain.

“ _After_ breakfast,” he repeats now, as Ivory's fingers curl awkwardly around the handle of the mug at last.

Ivory eats half of his breakfast, slowly and shakily, before handing the plate back with a shy glance at Raphael and an apologetic twist of his mouth.

“That's fine,” Raphael tells him, “you ate plenty, I made too much. You're supposed to have small bites of food throughout the day rather than big meals all at once, anyway. Here comes your cat, by the way.”

Raphael has secretly dubbed her Hazel, after he caught her rolling around in the patch of clover underneath the hazelnut tree. The slinky black creature nudges her way into the room through the half-open window and jumps up onto Ivory's pillow, turning a few circles before settling down. She's dark like the witching hour, and quiet like Ivory, though occasionally she purrs a little under her breath.

“She seems quite attached to you,” Raphael hums, and Ivory shrugs and reaches out to pet her. His fingers are still painfully cramped, and Raphael notices that his knuckles are sore and cracked, the itchy redness a contrast to the pallor of his skin.

“Tell you what,” Raphael says, “I'll draw you that bath now, but I'm not letting you alone in there after yesterday, and you'll have to let me rub some ointment on that later, okay?”

He points at Ivory's hands, and Ivory looks pained and perhaps a little more flushed than before, but nods, his lips pressed tight together. Raphael rolls up his sleeves and goes to turn on the warm water, then clears the breakfast tray away, hangs a towel above the oven in the kitchen to warm it, and fetches some herbs from the garden to add to the bath in a little bundle. He makes sure Ivory takes all of his medicine and drinks another glass of water. Keeping busy means less time to think about unpleasant things for both of them, like the fact that Ivory is clearly uncomfortable with needing all this help, or that if he helps Ivory undress, Raphael might see evidence of what they did to him in prison, and he's not sure he can look at that right now without breaking apart.

So when the water is ready and Ivory has untwisted himself from the sheets, Raphael takes his clothes off with swift, easy movements, singing a silly little song under his breath that his mother used to hum around the house when he and his siblings were little, and trying his best to look at the fabric in his hands rather than the naked skin it reveals. He's seen Ivory naked many times before, in the showers after a raid, but this is different, more intimate, and Ivory looks so unhappy about it all that Raphael nearly falters.

“Almost done,” Raphael tells him when Ivory is down to his pants, and helps him to stand up. He's a bit relieved when Ivory bats his hand away to do the rest himself, leaning on Raphael nevertheless, his movements slow and complicated. When he's done, Raphael leads him over to the steaming bathtub and gently guides him inside, a ripple of pleasure weaving down his spine at the tiny whimpery sigh Ivory makes as he sinks into the warm water.

“Temperature okay?” Raphael asks, and Ivory nods. His knees are sticking up above the water, skinny and knobbly and a little bit bruised. Raphael sits on the floor and has to squeeze his hands between his own knees to squash the urge to reach out and touch Ivory's. He's glad when Hazel comes inquiring after them and leaps onto the edge of the bathtub, because it gives Raphael something else to focus on besides the steam making slick snail paths in the crisp morning air and the way Ivory's hair starts to curl wetly at the nape of his neck.

“I'm going to be very unimpressed with you if you fall in,” Raphael tells the cat. Hazel's ears twitch, and she freezes mid-prowl, one foot in the air. To Ivory, he says: “We had her checked out by the Margrave yesterday, she's clean and healthy and all, but still...”

Ivory lifts a hand to let Hazel sniff it and she blinks a few times and licks his finger. Ivory startles and makes a small sound like an amused snort, and Raphael can't help but count the bath as a resounding success, seeing as it's coaxed two noises out of Ivory already, when there'd only been coughing fits before.

Ghislain told him, that first night, that Ivory had yet to say a single word after his time in prison. There was no damage to his vocal chords, according to the Margrave, but Raphael is still relieved to hear it for himself. Ivory has never been much of a talker, of course, so Raphael figures he might just need some time to find his voice again, and doesn't press the issue.

Now somewhat more at ease, Raphael helps Ivory wash while Hazel stands guard on the rug and watches. A shudder trips down Ivory's back as Raphael rubs shampoo into his hair and he apologises, but Ivory only shakes his head, so Raphael tries his best to be even more gentle as he rinses it out. When they're done, he goes to fetch the warm towel from the kitchen and wraps Ivory up in it as soon as he steps out of the tub. It's one of Ghislain's, so it's large enough to cover his whole body including part of his face, and Raphael has to laugh at the sight of formerly spiky, knife-wielding Ivory snuggling down like a kitten into his big fluffy towel.

“Here, I'll lend you some pyjamas, they're less fussy to get off next time you want to wash,” Raphael tells him and disappears to get a pair from his wardrobe next door. The hot water seems to have loosened Ivory's muscles a little, because he doesn't need any assistance putting them on or getting back into bed. He's sleepy enough that he doesn't wince or protest when Raphael makes short work of his hands with the ointment, and then Raphael leaves him to take another nap while he makes a fresh batch of ginger tea in the kitchen, humming happily to himself. The rain has let up outside, Hazel is winding around his feet in the hopes of a second breakfast, and Ghislain stops by with an improbable tale about Balfour telling Troius where to stick it in training today, and somehow, after lunch, Raphael feels like picking up one of the many abandoned books that he's never managed to finish ever since coming back.

By the end of the day, he's turning the last page, as easily as stroking a stray curl of hair out of Ivory's face as he sleeps.

 

**Luvander**

 

The news reaches him, as these things nowadays do, by Ghislainian pigeon.

Luvander has to sit down right in the middle of his shop when he reads the sparse words announcing Ivory's return from the dead. It's a thankfully quiet moment in the shop, and his shop girl Holly, bless her, squirrels off to make him a cup of tea right away, advising him slyly to loosen his scarf a little if he's feeling faint.

“Don't worry about it, Luvander, it's just old age,” she smirks as she hands over the tea: black and briskly brewed, with a bracing, no-nonsense squirt of lemon and no sugar, thank the bastion.

“I'm going to have to take the rest of the day off, Holly dear,” Luvander tells her weakly, ignoring the jibe, and barely notices that he's scalding his tongue on the tea. “Can you manage on your own for the afternoon?”

“What, with no chaperone around to remind me not to stand too close to the gentlemen?” Holly laughs. “Ain't you concerned someone's going to whisk me away to a loveless marriage and ten bratty children, and then where will you be, without a shop girl to take over when you've got pressing engagements elsewhere?”

“You're not quite so irreplaceable as you seem to think,” Luvander reminds her pointedly, though they both know this is a ridiculous lie. Luvander's grown very fond of Holly in the few months she's been working for him, with her teasing banter and her swishing skirts and her deft, unafraid hands. If Luvander were interested in women at all, he would've been the one to sweep her off her feet long ago, never mind that she came out of a whorehouse in Charlotte, but perhaps they work better as friends, anyway. Holly, in any case, has sharp eyes, and she's lately taken to pointing out handsome fellows in the street for Luvander whenever she thinks he's getting a bit too maudlin and lonely.

“Go,” Holly tells him with a cheeky pinch to his behind that makes Luvander squawk in outrage. “I'll be fine on my own, and you've got business to take care of, I can see that.”

So Luvander leaves his shop in the capable hands of his dashing assistant and takes a carriage up to the Greylace Estate, or at least to where the first gate looms up out of the fog, from which point on he walks with his hat pulled low in his face and his collar turned up against the wet slap of the wind which is wagging like an excited dog's tongue today. At the fork in the path, Luvander takes the smaller one, leading to Ghislain's and Raphael's cottage rather than the stern, towering main house, which, he's told, has a rather convenient inner courtyard where the dragons can stretch their wings a bit without being seen from the outside.

Ghislain is waiting for him outside the cottage.

As always, Luvander feels something inside his soul relax a fraction when he sees the large frame of his friend, arms crossed against the wind and chewing idly on a stalk of sorrel as he leans up against the door frame.

“Good afternoon,” Luvander calls out cheerfully, and adds “you complete shithead” for not telling Luvander sooner about this secret rescue mission and the fact that another one of their comrades has been found very much alive. Ghislain chuckles, spits out his sorrel and holds the door open for him with a gallant little bow.

“Much obliged,” Luvander says, out of breath and damp all over, and meticulously wipes his shoes on the doormat before entering the small cottage. He's been here a few times before. It's a clean and pleasant place, furnished with strawberry blond wood and light, comforting fabrics, and always the smell of tea leaves and something baking in the oven wafting through the air. It's not particularly tidy, at least not as far as Raphael's clothes and books are concerned, which have a habit of merrily covering every available surface including and especially the ones designed for sitting on, but the kitchen is neat and pristine and the garden has been steadily improving, which is more than Luvander ever expected from any of his fellow airmen, really.

When he peeks inside the kitchen, Raphael is elbow-deep in some sort of dough, kneading and humming a disjointed tune, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the fire and a teapot mouthing steam from its spot on the table. He looks more alive than Luvander can remember seeing him for a long time, and Luvander only gives him a little salute and a wink before turning back into the corridor.

“Where is the twice-damned scoundrel, then, Ghislain?” he asks, cracking his knuckles. The pitiful creaking sound it produces doesn't compare to the cringe-inducing, ear-splitting noise Ghislain usually coaxes from his own hands, but then nothing ever really compares to Ghislain, does it?

Again, Ghislain laughs, and leads him toward the guest bedroom at the back, where Luvander has spent a night or two when things got too late in the past. It's a darling little room, overlooking the garden, and Luvander once found a very smudged half of a poem written in Raphael's hand tucked between the pages of an abandoned book, with words crossed out and a frustrated scribble at the end indicating it to be of his own penmanship. He kept it, because it was sweet and hapless and touching, intending to grill Raphael about the identity of the recipient at the next opportunity, but somehow Luvander never really had the heart to bring it up.

The twice-damned scoundrel whom Ghislain has dragged back to the land of the living from the bowels of a Ke-Han prison, it turns out, already has a visitor.

“Hello, Luvander,” Balfour says from where he's perched neatly on a chair beside Ivory's bed and waves. “Ghislain said you might join us soon. Here, I brought another chair for you.”

Luvander slips out of his coat and hat and puts both in Ghislain's capable arms, then clears his throat and walks up to Ivory's bed. The man in question is propped up on pillows, looking tired and paler than Luvander remembers him, his hands curled weakly around a cup of tea on the sheets. He coughs painfully as Luvander lowers himself on his chair.

“Well,” Luvander says, suddenly, for once in his life, at a loss for words.

“I've just been telling Ivory about your hat shop, Luvander,” Balfour supplies helpfully. “Didn't you get a new shop girl the other month?”

It's easy, then, to launch into the tale of how he found Holly – or Holly found him, rather – and from that to continue on to Balfour's brief and disastrous stint as a diplomat, or a re-enactment of Raphael's own return from the fishing village. While Balfour and Luvander talk, Ivory silently sips his tea with trembling hands and listens, though no emotion passes over his exhausted face save for a most minuscule and fleeting frown when Luvander reaches the part about the fisherman's daughter, but he starts coughing again right after, so it might not even be connected to the story at all. Ghislain comes to fetch them for tea soon after, and they say goodbye and troop out to the kitchen so Ivory can rest.

“Never been much of a talker, has he?” Luvander sighs into the cotton-wool silence as Raphael serves them delicious brioche still warm from the oven.

“Must be some sort of trauma... thing,” Balfour says, miserably picking at the raisins in his brioche. “Who knows what they did to him. I, personally, don't want to imagine.”

“Yes, thank you for reminding us all,” Luvander says pointedly and Balfour colours. Raphael drops a saucer, looking fretful and upset, and Luvander is glad when Ghislain wrangles the rest of the teacups out of Raphael's hands and steers him over to the table and into a chair. He jumps up again right away, though, because there's a knock on the door and then Adamo sticks his head and massive torso inside, patting raindrops from his shoulders.

“Afternoon, boys.”

“Missed him again, Chief,” Ghislain grunts, shooing Raphael back into his chair and getting out another cup and plate for Adamo himself. “He's taking a nap.”

“Bastion, that boy sure sleeps a lot,” Adamo grumbles. Luvander makes room for him on the bench and waves him over, and Adamo squeezes himself in with a big coal smudge of a sigh. He smells like leather, dragon fuel and regrets.

“Chief's been checking on him every day,” Raphael explains to Balfour and Luvander, quietly shredding his brioche without eating even a tiny bite, which is a shame, if you ask Luvander, who quickly saves the last intact piece from crumbly destruction by squirrelling it away onto his own plate. “You two were lucky you saw him awake.”

“Got news for you,” Adamo announces, downing half of his tea. “Turns out there's two brothers living somewhere near Borland. I sent them a letter, but the post tends to get stuck down there, so it might be a while til we have a reply. Here's hoping they can read, anyway.”

“That all he's got left?” Ghislain asks. There's something soft and crinkly in his voice, like faded old newspaper, and Luvander remembers the treasure trove of stories about Ghislain's many sea-faring brothers, uncles and cousins and his stomach clenches a bit.

“All I could find,” Adamo shrugs. “Better than none at all, I figure.”

“He never mentioned his family, before,” Raphael mumbles sadly, and Balfour absently pats his back.

“Well, he wasn't the only one,” Balfour says with a sly glance at Luvander, who shoots back a cheerful smile out of reflex and quickly starts a conversation inquiring about Adamo's health and how the new recruits are progressing, just so he doesn't have to think too much about how his own family would react if he were brought back alive after months of being presumed dead. _Lukewarm_ would be aiming too high, probably.

They spend a while catching up, and then Adamo goes to see if Ivory's awake yet and Raphael invites them all to stay for dinner, which Luvander gladly accepts, because Holly will be closing the shop by now and another solitary dinner of burnt toast and cheese due to lack of time to go to the market this week doesn't sound very appealing. Adamo excuses himself back to his protégés, and Luvander helps Raphael cook while Ghislain disappears upstairs and Balfour has a look round the garden.

“How are you doing, Raphael?” Luvander asks once everyone is gone, leaving only an echo of footsteps in the warm, freshly baked quiet of the kitchen. Raphael is chopping onions, but his hands are unsteady, so Luvander puts a hand on his wrist and slides the knife out of his grasp to take over.

“I'm fine,” Raphael says, in that high-pitched voice of his that means he's really not. “I'm just, I'm fine.”

“He's healing,” Luvander simply says. “It's a process. You never saw me after the battle, the state I was in. And poor Balfour, of course. Rook, too, though he was always too damn stubborn for his own good. The point is, we all had someone to look after us, and Ivory's got you now, so he'll be alright. It just takes a little time.”

Raphael busies himself shifting pots around in a drawer, but Luvander can see him surreptitiously wiping a sleeve over his face and has to force himself to keep his eyes on the knife and his hand on the chopping board so he won't scare the shit out of Raphael by hugging him out of the blue.

“I know,” Raphael finally says, his voice thick like overcooked soup. “I just... this morning, when I brought him his breakfast, he was a bit feverish and he barely ate anything at all and he just looked so... fragile that... I know it's silly, but for a moment I was scared that he might fall asleep and never wake up again, you know?”

“It's _Ivory_ , Raphael, he's tougher than that. We used to fly through hailstorms and forest fires, remember?”

That coaxes a smile out of Raphael, so Luvander makes sure to launch into a soothing stream of meaningless, nostalgic rambling while they prepare the food, a dark, frothy stew with meat, carrots and potatoes, and by the time Ghislain and Balfour come back, drawn in by the delicious smell, Raphael is back to his calm, fussy self, setting the table before Balfour can even get a hand on the plates and filling a small bowl with stew for Ivory.

Dinner at the cottage is heartfelt and welcoming, served to guests in a warm cocoon of friendly banter and half-wistful anecdotes, everyone nestled in between the homely smells of Raphael's kitchen like children in the laps of their parents. Luvander would love to do this every day, but even if he could afford to close the shop early, he wouldn't be able to handle the needling pain somewhere between his stomach and his chest that comes with all the joy, a stone-cold dried-up souvenir left in his guts by a childhood spent sitting at a silent table poking his fork at every meagre scrap of attention carelessly tossed his way.

So when the plates are cleared away and Balfour is half asleep on Luvander's shoulder, the night sliding damp against the windowpanes in gleaming scales of darkness, Luvander finally excuses himself. He helps Balfour into his jacket, calls goodbye to Ghislain who's bustling around upstairs, and hugs a slightly tipsy Raphael a bit tighter than he normally would have. Raphael only makes a small crooning noise like a pigeon, face pressed into Luvander's scarf, and waves from the doorway until Balfour and Luvander are out of sight.

Once upon a time, Luvander would have been in love with Raphael, if he hadn't been so busy trying to fit himself into the Rookian mould of a proper airman. He's grown out of both of these things now, but here and there, his heart is still a little bit blind-sided by the way Raphael smiles or sounds or looks, silhouetted against the light of the hallway, as Luvander walks down the crunching gravel path to the gate.

 

**Ivory**

 

He can hear them laughing in the kitchen when he wakes up.

A while ago, the Chief came into his room to check on him, but Ivory was too exhausted to even sit up, and he left again soon after, leaving only a few words behind in the cool air, the bare bones of a one-sided conversation. Ivory fell asleep again, and when Ghislain brought him his food, all his efforts only got him as far as halfway through the small bowl.

There's a damp towel on his forehead now, and his body is raging with dragon fire and shaking under a pile of blankets like he used to back in prison when the nights were so cold his skin seemed to be frozen stuck to the darkness.

Dizziness and nausea unspool in his stomach so suddenly that Ivory doesn't even make it over the edge of the bed before he throws up. He retches and coughs violently for a couple of minutes, fighting for breath and some semblance of control over the heaving of his guts, and he clutches the headboard for fear of passing out, feeling raw and like he's been turned inside out when it finally stops. His cheeks are wet. He doesn't move at all, too scared one wrong move might tilt the world out of focus again. Almond streaks out through the door which has been left ajar. He can't blame her, the sour smell is almost enough to set him off again, but then she comes back, with Ghislain at her heels, and Ivory thinks _good girl_ , relieved that she didn't get Raphael instead more than he is sorry and uncomfortable that Ghislain's the one who has to deal with his mess once more.

“Well, this looks familiar,” Ghislain sighs, and gets to work.

Ivory barely registers being cleaned up. He's back to shaking, arms and legs tucked in close and cramping painfully, and Ghislain doesn't even bother wrangling him back into pyjamas when he's done, just wraps him tightly in a new set of blankets and carries him out of the room and through a nearby door.

“I'm putting you up in Raphael's bed,” Ghislain tells him with an air of finality. “It's big enough for the two of you. That way he can get some shut-eye himself _and_ make sure you don't choke in the night.”

Ivory makes a very half-hearted sound of protest, further undermined when he immediately burrows into the pillows as Ghislain lowers him on the bed, which is cool and clean and smells like Raphael. Ghislain draws the duvet over him, then gets a bucket to place on the floor by Ivory's side of the bed and dabs a little mint oil on the pillow.

“Helps settle the stomach,” he says, patting his shoulder, and Ivory nods gratefully. A fresh towel is placed on his forehead, then Ghislain goes next door to clean up his soiled bed, and Ivory closes his eyes and listens to the soothing sounds. He startles awake when Luvander calls up the stairs and footsteps clomp past his room and away, feeling wretched and disoriented, and after the front door clicks shut, there's a murmured conversation outside on the stairs, and someone slipping quietly into his room.

“Oh, Ivory,” Raphael whispers sadly, replacing the cloth on his forehead. Ivory wants to tell him it's fine, that he's better now; but he's not, not really, and he doesn't have the energy to try and shape words yet anyway.

“I'm sorry, that was a bit much, wasn't it?” Raphael says after a while, smoothing back Ivory's too-long hair. “There'll be no more visitors until you feel better, I promise.”

Ivory drifts off again while Raphael is in the bathroom, safe in his cloud of blankets and low lamplight. He can feel Raphael crawl into bed with him, but it doesn't really register, at least not until early the next morning, when he wakes up, naked and clammy with cold sweat, with the blankets twisted loose around him and the soft, fuzzy weight of Almond lying curled on his chest, just above his heart. Dawn is grey and metallic, echoing painfully with the shock and misery of the night before, and Ivory's stomach is pinched and sour and his limbs are sore and aching. The only warmth comes from Raphael, who is sprawled on his side next to him. Somehow, their hands have become entwined on the pillow in sleep.

With an unhappy sound, Ivory reels his arm back in, disentangling their fingers and burying his hand in Almond's fur instead. Raphael makes a mumbly sound against the pillow and shifts, his fingers forlornly tracing the shapes Ivory's arm has left behind in the fabric, and Ivory curls away from him, tumbling Almond off his chest in the process but gathering her close in the crook of his elbow. She sighs and goes back to sleep.

“Oh,” Raphael slurs behind him, voice dry and wobbly with sleep. “M-morning. What time is it? Need to make breakfast...”

He sits up abruptly with a soft whine, stretching, and Ivory's heart keens at the sudden loss of his warmth. Almond kicks her legs and flicks her ears, and Ivory smushes his face up against her unruly morning fur and feels her little heartbeat tick alongside his cheek.

“Mgmngmn,” Ivory says. It's a start, anyway, and Almond replies with a short, crooning burst of purring.

“Ugh, you and that cat,” Raphael mutters, fondly, and Ivory doesn't know what to make of that. He pries open one eye, and sees a blurred version of Raphael in his rumpled, mismatched pyjamas perched on the edge of the bed, trying to squeeze into his tangled cardigan which is inside-out, hair too untidy to even be called a bird's nest anymore.

“Are you feeling better? I'll make you tea, and maybe some food later, something light, toast maybe and a soft-boiled egg...”

Raphael keeps murmuring to himself about breakfast as he pads down the hallway to the kitchen, and Ivory breathes in the smell of Almond's fur and listens to the clink of milk bottles being taken inside, the rustle of newspaper, the sounds of a fire being stoked and the kettle warming up, a clatter of spoons dropping to the floor. Halfway through the procedure, Almond's ears perk up, and she unwinds from Ivory's arms, stretches, and follows Raphael into the kitchen for her own breakfast. Ivory bunches up all the remaining blankets around himself, even Raphael's, and tries not to feel bereft.

After breakfast, Raphael takes his temperature, which has thankfully gone down, and draws him another bath, in his own bathroom this time, which is marginally bigger than the one in what Ivory assumes to be the guest bedroom, and has a candle stub and a small stack of poetry books nestled on a low shelf within reach of the bathtub. Raphael, sitting cross-legged on the floor, sees him looking and pulls one out.

“I can read some to you, if you want,” he offers, hope and resignation clearly warring on his face, as if he wants Ivory to say yes but expects him to say no. “Or you can read it yourself if you'd rather.”

Ivory, up to his nose in steaming water, shakes his head and then points at Raphael.

“You want me to read it?” Raphael checks, and Ivory nods. So Raphael reads poems to him in the safe cocoon of the bath while another spring rain tickles the walls of the house, and wraps Ivory up in a fresh towel, warm from the oven again, smiling fondly, and lends him another pair of pyjamas before ushering him back into his bed, because Ivory's mattress in the other room isn't dry yet. The rain stops, and Raphael leaves the window open a little to let the damp air wash the room clean.

“Hands,” Raphael demands, holding out his own. Ivory reluctantly pulls his arms free, and Raphael gently cups one of his hands in his palm and spreads some ointment over his knuckles, then rubs it into the abused skin. When he starts on Ivory's fingers, Ivory shivers, a strange feeling in his stomach, like a stone skipping on water and making ripples.

“Sorry, did that hurt?” Raphael murmurs, his voice husky, like a candle flame burning low. Ivory shakes his head, but tugs his hand back anyway and holds out the other instead. Raphael repeats the procedure, even more careful with his fingers now, which doesn't really help, and Ivory flexes his shoulders and shoves his hands back down underneath the blanket when he's done.

“Try to sleep a bit more,” Raphael says softly, and Ivory does.

 

**Maxwell**

 

When the letter comes, with soggy edges and a fancy blue wax seal, Maxwell immediately knows it's trouble.

He calls for Sebastian and cracks open the seal, feeling a little trickle of grim pleasure in the base of his spine at the sound it makes. Inside the envelope, there's only a single sheet of parchment, covered in short, brusque sentences; not unlike the last blue-sealed letter they got which proclaimed their brother to be dead in the service of the Esar and Volstov. The handwriting is different this time though, even if the contents of the letter mirror those of the first: where Ivory was alive at the beginning of the first and dead at its end, this time he is dead at the beginning and alive again at the end.

Once upon a time, Maxwell tried to teach Ivory the alphabet, there at the kitchen table where Sebastian is now clutching his arm so tightly there will be fingernail-marks in the crease of his elbow when he lets go. Six-year-old Ivory got too worked-up about his slow progress, and ran outside in a strop, never to go near a single book or newspaper again. He was always ambitious, always hard on himself. Always quick to anger. Maxwell misses him like a forest fire razing down every village in its path, and now he's alive, somewhere, in the city that killed him in the first place.

“Max,” Sebastian says, “we have to -”

“Yes,” Maxwell interrupts, already on his feet. “I'll arrange for a carriage, go pack your things.”

So they go to the city that swallowed up their brother.

Neither of them have been to Thremedon before. They are farmers; Maxwell with a side-interest in bee-keeping, Sebastian with a side-interest in – oh, everything – currently pottery and glass-blowing, though it used to be astronomy for the longest time. Sebastian put his telescope away on the day the first letter came, but they don't talk about that. Nowadays, wonky clay mugs and scorched glass figurines that even Maxwell can't find a use for are dotting the house. He'll get better, though. Sebastian always does.

They meet the Chief Sergeant and a beautiful, regal-looking woman named Antoinette outside the Basquiat. Sebastian nearly gets distracted foaming at the mouth about all the impressive architecture surrounding them, but the woman's voice is compelling and pulls his focus back to the papers they have to sign, which state a carefully-worded agreement not to leave the house where their brother is being tended to and go exploring on their own, or to disclose its location to anyone else. Sebastian is confused at all this secrecy, Maxwell impatient; they just want to see with their own eyes that Ivory isn't dead.

Strangely, those first few days between the arrival of the letter and their arrival at the cottage feel infinitely longer than the endless months in which they grieved.

It is late afternoon when they step off yet another carriage and follow the Chief Sergeant through a pair of high silver gates, their tops crested with snakes so lifelike they seem to be coiling and undulating around the cold metal. The gates open soundlessly, without a single creak, and they wade through lilac-grey dusk that is collecting in the grass like heavy perfume, wetting their breeches on puddles and dew. Sebastian bumps elbows with him and Maxwell bumps back a little too hard.

“Why here?” Maxwell asks the Chief as the cottage condenses out of the mist.

“Apart from the peace and quiet that Thremedon herself can't provide?” the Chief asks with a ruddy half-smile. “Mostly the fact that he has friends taking care of him here, friends who went through similar things, who've lost the same people and things.”

“Friends,” Maxwell says, surprised, but Sebastian puts a hand on his back and he falls silent. Ivory's never mentioned friends, on those rare occasions they got to see him after he joined the Corps. He'd never had any before that to begin with.

At the door, they are greeted by a curious black cat and a nervous, curly-haired man introduced to them as Raphael, who worries at his too-long sleeves and offers them tea.

“I can bring you a tray if you'd rather see him right away, he's awake I think. I told him you were coming.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian says, proving once again that he has a better grasp on his manners than Maxwell, “that would be lovely.”

Raphael nods and disappears inside a cosy kitchen that smells of mint and lemon peel. The Chief leads them down a corridor and stops in front of a closed door.

“I'll leave you to it, then,” he says, nodding at the door. Sebastian thanks him graciously, and chides Maxwell for looking so grim when the Chief has gone.

They haven't asked any details about Ivory's state, but they've prepared for the worst during those long nights in the swaying carriage from Borland to Thremedon, so it shouldn't come as a shock to see him alive and well enough considering the circumstances – except it does, it feels like someone stepped on Maxwell's spine and got their foot tangled in his nerves, worse still when Ivory utters a little cry as he catches sight of them and struggles to sit up. Max is having none of that, though: he's on the bed in a heartbeat, wrapping Ivory up in his arms, Sebastian close behind.

“Max,” Ivory says, and his voice sounds painfully rough, like rust flaking off an iron gate under one's hands. Then he twines his fingers in Maxwell's shirt and coughs wetly into his shoulder, shaking all over, so thin and small; Max can't remember him ever being so small.

“Come, now, Maxwell,” Sebastian says wryly from behind, “you'll choke him if you keep this up, and this after he's only just been resurrected. Show some respect.”

Maxwell clings to Ivory a bit longer, then passes him on to Sebastian so he can surreptitiously wipe at his eyes out of sight of his brothers. Ivory makes a tiny, delicate mewling sound and nestles into Sebastian's embrace like a sigh into silence; his hair is too long and there is something wrong with the fingers of his left hand.

“Hello, cub,” Sebastian says at last, releasing him enough to take Ivory's chin in his hand and scrutinise his face. “You look pale. Didn't enjoy your holiday in the Ke'Han gods-damned Empire?”

A wry, bitter smile flattens out the corners of Ivory's mouth and he makes a sound somewhere in the no-man's land between a sob and a laugh.

“Not my climate,” he rasps, then tugs his face out of Sebastian's grip to cough violently into his sleeve.

“I see,” Sebastian nods, and Maxwell adds “good thing we raised you to be a tenacious little bugger, then.”

 

**Raphael**

 

Raphael takes his time preparing the tea. He doesn't want to intrude on the family reunion, and besides, his hands are shaking again, and Ghislain will not be amused if Raphael breaks any more crockery this month, let alone his favourite teapot with the skull and crossbones on it. Raphael chooses a large tin pot instead, but promptly burns his fingers on the hot outside when he attempts to place it on the tray – better not tell Ghislain about that, either. Adamo is staring out of the window, deep in thought, and Raphael places a teacup and a slice of lemon cake in front of him before going back to fuss with the tray.

“They'll be happy to see him, won't they?” he can't help himself asking. He sets out three plates, forks and spoons next to the cups and the pot and a little basket with cake, then adds a jar of honey and some lemon slices, just in case. “Ivory's brothers?”

Adamo's dark eyes slide over to him. They remind Raphael of flying through a cloudless night, with cold wind snapping at his ears and hair beneath the hood of his leather jacket, and of taking a sudden dive.

“Expect so,” Adamo grunts, squinting at his tea. “They seemed eager enough to come here.”

“Good, good,” Raphael mumbles distractedly and picks up his tray, but puts it down again at once to pour a little jug of milk and add some dog-eared cloth napkins from the back of a cupboard.

“Raphael,” Adamo starts, then sighs. “Stop fussing and bring the lads their tea. Last time I checked, they weren't breathing fire, so ain't no reason to get your breeches in a twist about whether they prefer it with milk or a healthy splash of machine oil.”

Raphael smiles.

“Yes, sir,” he says, picks up the tray once more and carries it to the door.

It's quiet in the corridor that connects the kitchen and the other downstairs rooms. Raphael walks slowly, careful not to spill a drop, but when he reaches Ivory's room, he faces the conundrum of lacking another hand to knock, and he doesn't just want to barge in on them unannounced – before he's done panicking about this, though, the door swings open, revealing one of Ivory's tall, eerie-looking brothers, both of whom are pale, light blond, and slightly nerve-wracking, just as Ivory himself. Maybe it runs in the family, Raphael thinks and swallows.

“Tea?”

“Yes, please,” says the brother, an unsettlingly sudden smile on his face, and steps aside to let him in. “Raphael, isn't it? Ivory's told us you've been taking such good care of him. Why, you must join us, of course. We want to know everything our little brother's neglected to tell us.”

“ _Told_ you,” Raphael says, confused, and the teacups rattle on the tray. “Um?”

“Sebastian,” tuts the second brother, the one with the magnificent beard, gently taking the tray from Raphael and setting it on the desk. “You're embarrassing our host.”

Sebastian looks cheerfully unapologetic and guides Raphael into one of the wicker chairs around Ivory's bed. Then he settles into the one his brother just vacated, leaving only the bed for him to sit.

“My apologies,” Sebastian says as he accepts a cup of tea and a slice of lemon. “Where are my manners? Let me introduce my dear brother Maxwell, who likes to pretend he is the courteous one, while in reality being unabashedly responsible for ninety percent of the mischief and trouble that befalls our family -”

“Until this little troublemaker came along,” Maxwell interrupts gruffly, holding a plate of lemon cake above Ivory's head and ignoring his frustrated efforts to reach it, “and decided he had to out-do me by riding a bastion-damned flying metal dragon into war and getting himself carted off to a Ke'Han dungeon for his efforts, no thanks to his _friends_...”

“Max,” Sebastian says sharply, and Maxwell snaps his mouth shut and shrugs. Ivory finally catches hold of his cake and makes a triumphant little noise, cradling it close between his chest and his drawn-up knees. For a moment, both older brothers look strangely indulgent.

“He really likes lemon cake, you know,” Sebastian says softly. Then he turns back to Raphael. “But you must tell us about yourself. Ivory says he was close to you before the battle...”

Raphael's mouth drops open again and his eyes flicker back to Ivory, who is turning a rather fetching shade of pink and stabbing a little viciously at his cake, refusing to look at anyone. Sebastian falls silent, and he and Maxwell take a simultaneous sip from their tea as if coordinated by some unseen force. Briefly, Raphael wonders if they are twins.

“I, um,” he says, puzzled, and nervously digs his thumbs into the fabric of his sleeves. “I guess...?”

“Interesting,” Sebastian hums at once, his gaze fixed on Ivory, who grimaces, rolls his eyes, and sets down his fork.

Then, to Raphael's great astonishment, he turns to Raphael and says: “Please excuse my brothers, they're both nuisances. And thank you, for...”

He gestures vaguely with his half-eaten cake and looks terribly uncomfortable all of a sudden, making Raphael's stomach churn with sympathy and fondness.

“No – no problem,” he whispers, nearly poking a hole into his sleeve.

“Oh, did you make this?” Maxwell says conversationally, a piece of cake on his fork. “It's sublime, please give Sebastian the recipe so he might make it at home. On second thought, don't, he will surely butcher it by adding some strange ingredient just because it _looked funny_ at the market, or...”

“Shush, you,” Sebastian grins, “you said yourself you liked my strawberry mustard tart.”

“That was _one time_! One time, out of hundreds of abominable creations!”

“ _I_ liked the strawberry mustard tart,” Ivory says quietly, smilingly, and Raphael feels like a tiny nugget of butter just melted into gooey warmth in his stomach. “And the lamb in chocolate sauce.”

“Excuse me,” Raphael mumbles as the brothers continue to quarrel and stands up on wobbly legs. “I need to go talk to Ghislain, I think.”

 

**Sebastian**

 

Alright, so they pry a bit.

Once Raphael is gone, Maxwell all but descends on Ivory with a barrage of questions; there's barely time for Ivory to answer before the next ones pile up like snowdrifts around him on the bed. Sebastian, too, is curious about Ivory's uncharacteristic fondness for Raphael, which is written plainly all over his face and seems to be quite mutual, but Ivory starts looking exhausted, so he makes sure Maxwell collects up the debris of their tea while he tucks Ivory back in. The black cat from earlier slips into the room as Sebastian opens the door and curls up at the foot of Ivory's bed with a huff of annoyance. Sebastian smiles.

“You get some rest, cub,” he tells Ivory, pushing Maxwell and the tray out into the corridor. “We'll be back soon.”

He winks and closes the door behind him, then pokes a finger into Max' spine to prod him forward. The kitchen door is open, light from a fire melting in gentle pools on the floorboards, and Sebastian can hear voices; one soft and distressed, the other deep and rumbling. He's about to cheerfully announce their presence and thank Raphael once again for the excellent tea when Maxwell stops, his head half turned and listening intently.

“...what if they want to take him away, Ghislain? They obviously care about him, and they're his _family_ , he barely even made a noise ever since he came here and now he's talking like nothing happened -”

“Calm down, Raphael,” says the other voice, laced with rocky amusement. “He's not fit to move just yet.”

Maxwell and Sebastian share a quick look, then Sebastian reaches out to rattle the tray and steps around Max, entering the kitchen. Raphael is scrunched up on the bench by the window with a mug the size of the Kiril islands in front of him, looking dejected; another man, massive and forbidding, is cracking eggs into a pan on the stove with surprising precision.

“Oh,” Raphael says as he spots them, immediately uncoiling from his perch and knocking his knees painfully against the table. Some of his tea splashes out over the side of his mug and darkens the wood. Maxwell sets the tea tray down on an empty surface and clears his throat.

“We just wanted to say thank you,” Sebastian says carefully into the bubbling silence, “for your hospitality and for looking after our brother. We have rented a room at an inn on the edge of town, so we won't be bothering you any longer...”

“...but we'd like to come back tomorrow,” Maxwell finishes gruffly.

“If it's not too much trouble,” Sebastian adds. “We'll be staying a while, though, and I'd quite like to see some of the sights, so whenever is convenient for you, really.”

Raphael's eyes are wide and round. He's still dabbing at the tea stain on the table, which is long since dry. Sebastian can see the man at the stove – Ghislain – smirk quietly over his eggs out of the corner of his eye.

“Yes, of course,” Raphael says weakly, “excuse me, I'm – we're not very used to having visitors, much less such polite ones. Apart from Balfour, anyway. I'd offer you the guest room, but...”

“Oh, no, it's fine,” Sebastian waves him off. “We've caused quite enough excitement for you today.”

“Will you at least stay for dinner? It's nothing fancy, I'm afraid, Ivory's stomach is still getting used to – well – but you'd be welcome to join us.”

Sebastian mulls this over while Maxwell looks hopeful. They haven't exactly figured out the details of their stay yet, all they have is the room at the inn, which does provide food but left a somewhat dodgy impression on them in terms of palatability when they passed through the bar room earlier, so the offer is welcome, and the smell from the stove is mouth-watering already. There's a small mound of chopped herbs on a wooden cutting board beside Ghislain, who is supervising a giant omelette and toasting bread.

In the end, they accept. Raphael becomes a flurry of pleased motion, setting the table, opening a bottle of wine, chopping sausages and onions and dealing with the tray so he can lay out food and medicine for Ivory. Sebastian, who took a passing interest in healing plants last year, watches this process with quiet approval, and offers to take the tray over to Ivory's room when the omelette is done.

When Sebastian opens the door, Ivory is crying.

It's a small, anguished, helpless sort of crying, not the angry frustrated sort that Maxwell and Sebastian are used to when it comes to their baby brother, and it breaks Sebastian's heart clean in two. He puts the tray on the desk, carefully lights one of the lamps and sits down on the bed next to Ivory, who seems to be attempting to push himself so far into his pillows that he disappears.

“Ivy,” Sebastian says, putting his hand on Ivory's shoulder, lightly so as not to scare him. “I brought your dinner.”

Slowly, Ivory pries his blotchy wet face out of the sheets and sucks in a wobbly, halting breath still threaded through with damp little sounds. He coughs a bit, squeezing his eyes shut, then he glances briefly up at Sebastian and tugs his hand off his shoulder to clutch at it with clumsy fingers. Sebastian holds his hand for a moment and reaches up to soothe the tangled, sweaty hair away from Ivory's forehead.

“Maxxie and I are sleeping at an inn,” Sebastian continues. “I want to go see the Basquiat early tomorrow morning, but we'll be back around noon I think. I can bring a pair of scissors and cut your hair, if you want.”

Ivory nods and presses his lips together. Tears are still sliding down his cheeks, but the sounds are starting to dwindle. He blinks hard a few times, an old habit when he is confused or overwhelmed, and Sebastian tucks a final strand of hair behind his ear and helps him sit up.

“Your friend Ghislain made omelette,” he says, handing over the plate. “With about twenty eggs, I'd wager. Max was very excited, as you can imagine.”

A small, unsteady smile steals over Ivory's lips. Somewhat impatiently, he wipes his sleeve over his face, coughs a bit more, then takes up his fork and starts eating his omelette very, very slowly, in tiny bites. Sebastian pours him a glass of water for his medicine and gently nudges Ivory's hungry cat off the bed. She yowls, grumpily, and slips out through the crack in the door to find her own food.

“We'll be staying a week,” Sebastian tells Ivory once he's sure that Ivory is eating properly. “Maxwell's girl is looking after the garden and the chickens in the meantime. We sold the goats a while back, the cats and the bees can look after themselves. It's up to you if you want to come home with us once you're well enough to travel. Maxxie's probably going to make a scene if you don't, but you know how he is. We're both really glad you've got those friends of yours looking after you, you know.”

Ivory swallows, sets his fork down with a little frown and rubs tiredly at his left eye.

“Okay,” he finally says, sounding hoarse and exhausted. “Thanks.”

There's a knock on the door, then Raphael sticks his head in, looking worried and asking if everything's alright. Ivory quickly ducks his head and turns his face away from the circle of lamplight spilling from the desk, but resumes eating, and Sebastian stands up from his perch on the bed and stretches.

“Yes,” he says, gently ruffling Ivory's hair, “just wanted to make sure he ate something. Have you got any ginger tea, by chance?”

As Raphael scurries off obligingly, Sebastian turns and winks at Ivory and leaves the door open slightly so his cat can get back in.

 

**Ivory**

 

The next morning, Ivory wakes up early and decides he might as well try to get up and look at the garden.

Raphael finds him an hour later, wrapped in the cardigan he took from the boat and a blanket, perching on the little bench by the back door with Almond in his lap and watery splashes of sunlight on his face. It took him a while to walk all the way outside, but he made it, didn't he? There is really no need for Raphael to look so distressed, and Ivory tells him so, his tongue heavy with the oval shape of a laugh that won't quite slip out.

“Stubborn,” Raphael says weakly, plonking himself down on the bench next to Ivory with two mugs of tea. “They _said_ you were stubborn.”

Ivory shakes one hand free from the blanket and makes grabby motions in the air until Raphael carefully puts one of the mugs in his grip. He doesn't recognise today's blend, but it smells like the mountains, like black tea and herbs and wood smoke. It's refreshing and soothing at the same time.

“How's your skin?” Raphael asks gently, nodding at Ivory's hand. His knuckles are still sore and his fingers stiffer than he would have liked, but they're getting better since Raphael has started massaging them every day.

“Okay,” Ivory croaks. Making words is still exhausting. But then, it has always been exhausting for him, in a way. Almond bumps her snout into his wrist and chirrups, and Raphael reaches over to stroke her head, smoothing broad fingers over her shiny black fur and teasing her ears until she flicks them and gently bites his thumb. Raphael makes a show of trying to shake it loose from her small mouth, then laughs when she puts both front paws around it to hold it still and starts licking his fingernail. The sound shivers through Ivory like a spring rain and he quickly takes another sip of tea to hide the sudden tremor in his hands.

“Can I ask you something?” Raphael says into the loose-leaf silence that unfurls between them in the warm sunlight. Ivory looks at him, his lips poised on the rim of his mug, which is empty now, but still retains some of the heat of its earlier contents, and nods.

“When your brothers go back home... do you think you're going to go with them?”

Something unclenches in Ivory's guts, leaving a cool sliver of relief that he isn't expected to talk about prison just yet. He doesn't think he will ever want to talk about prison at all. It was easier, in a way, to simply refuse to talk about anything, but now that he's started, he can't very well go back to the silence of before; at the very least, Raphael is going to be terribly disappointed, and that thought feels like a paper-cut somewhere in Ivory's stomach.

“I don't know,” he says slowly, words still clumsy and trembling in his mouth like a foal's first steps. It's the truth – Ivory doesn't know where he belongs now that the Airman building has been cleared out and their dragons taken apart. Going home to his brothers is the most sensible and tempting prospect, but Ivory also feels an echo of the same old irrational defiance that made him leave that home in the first place still ghosting restlessly about his soul. He is not a child anymore; he doesn't need his brothers to look after him. Adamo told him he would be able to rent his own place in the city with the pension he's owed now that his service to the crown is fulfilled, and while the idea of living by himself doesn't scare him, he's also not particularly enticed by it anymore. So, then: he doesn't know. Not yet, anyway.

“Okay,” Raphael says on a nervous little half-sigh, his hands now back in his lap, fraying at his cuffs. “Well, you know, we never really used that guest room, and there's plenty of empty rooms up at the Estate if anyone ever does want to sleep here, so, anyway, I just thought, if you, say, wanted to stay here, I mean you could have your things brought here and everything...”

He trails off, looking apologetic, though for what reason Ivory cannot tell.

“Raphael,” he croaks, unable to process this offer just yet. “Why _are_ we here?”

It's something he's been puzzling over for a while now, and the way Raphael's face scrunches up in distress confirms his impression that they didn't just pick this cottage way out of town for its picturesque view.

“I'm so sorry,” Raphael says, cringing, “I can't tell you.”

Ivory nods, though the words hurt. He used to be an airman, and however reluctantly he engaged with his comrades back when there'd still been fourteen of them, he'd still unquestioningly been a part of the group. Now, he feels strangely alienated, even though Raphael just offered to let him stay at their house for good.

“I meant that literally,” Raphael says softly and sadly then, with a brief touch on Ivory's shoulder. “I _can't_ tell you. We've been – cursed, or whatever you want to call it, by that lady magician, Antoinette. It's classified information, but if I could say the words, I'd have told you right away. Not even Rook knows.”

“Oh,” Ivory murmurs, feeling a little silly now, and puts his empty mug on the bench beside him so he can bury his hand in Almond's sun-warmed fur to ground himself. “I see.”

“Maybe... maybe we could take you up to the Estate some time. I don't know exactly how this magic works, so you might – I don't know. Be able to see for yourself.”

Ivory's lips crack into a painful smile.

“Thank you,” he whispers, meaning it, and Raphael smiles back.

“You're welcome.”

He says it like it's not just a polite reply, but an actual statement, and that's when the last gears in Ivory's dragon mind finally click and he thinks, _yes, I'd like to stay_.

 

**Ghislain**

 

Raphael is in a good mood when Ghislain comes back from the farmer's market laden down with fresh produce. Most of the time, Raphael likes to go with him on market days, but today he stayed home to bake bread and look after Ivory, who is sitting outside in the sunshine with a blanket as Ghislain walks up the gravel path to the front door.

“Morning,” Ghislain says, tipping his hat, and Ivory grins. It warms his heart for a moment to see him up and well like this.

Ghislain takes one of the crates he's carrying inside the house for Raphael to unload. Later, he'll deliver the rest to Adamo at the Estate, where the kids are taking turns on kitchen duty, a new rule that Adamo set up after Antoinette refused to let them have any staff and, if you ask Ghislain, also because Adamo's trying to raise a more civilised bunch this time round than they were. From what can be coaxed out of Balfour, everyone dreads the days when it's Troilus' turn to cook, or at least that's what Ghislain thinks Balfour means – kid's too courteous for his own good, and that after several years of forced re-education by rude airmen and dragons alike.

“Ooooh, rhubarb,” Raphael cries as Ghislain puts the crate down on the kitchen table, wiping his soapy hands on a dish towel to come and peer at the contents. “Did you find any lemons?”

“Aye,” Ghislain says, taking one out and tossing it up in the air several times. “Got everything you wanted right here.”

Then, when Raphael makes big round hopeful eyes, Ghislain chuckles and pulls a slightly squashed packet of green tea out of his coat. Trade with the Ke'Han received a boost after the end of the war, and today, after a couple of disappointing Saturdays, the tea and spice stall at the market finally had some in stock. Ghislain hands it over, and Raphael makes a wibbly sound as he inspects the gold and black painted box and inhales its smoky aroma.

“Can't wait to see Ivory's face when he has his first cup,” Raphael laughs. “I'll put the kettle on, his brothers should be here soon.”

Ghislain watches Raphael scurry around the kitchen, boiling water, putting the shopping away and drying off the last of the dishes, humming all the while, and thinks idly about paying Luvander a surprise visit later. Ghislain has been keeping him updated via pigeon, of course, but seeing Raphael so carefree and happy makes him want to tell Luvander in person. Besides, Luvander's told him several times that Ghislain needs to give them some privacy, and Luvander's usually right about this sort of thing.

Not that Ghislain doesn't also want to see Luvander.

“Remember when Mags made that woodruff punch,” Raphael suddenly says, holding a bottle of thick, pink apple juice in one hand and eyeing his kitchen herbs rather wistfully.

“The one that made us all hallucinate?” Ghislain feels the need to clarify, even though that one was the only woodruff punch Magoughin ever made, just in case Raphael has forgotten about this particular detail. Raphael just chuckles and puts the apple juice down.

“That was fun.”

“You thought someone had put fire ants in your books,” Ghislain points out. “Didn't find it very fun at the time, far as I remember.”

“Shit, yeah,” Raphael giggles, “should've known, too, after the mulled wine debacle.”

This time, Ghislain refrains from mentioning that the mulled wine debacle had only been a debacle because Raphael couldn't hold his liquor and had started serenading a very uncomfortable Ivory at two in the morning, not because Mags was notorious for putting weird ingredients in his punch, although the latter is, technically, also true.

Damn, Ghislain misses that man.

“Um,” someone says shyly from the doorway, and Ghislain turns to find Ivory in a cloud of blankets and cat hair, looking unsteady but determined on his feet. “Could I, some water?”

“Of course!” Raphael nearly yells, tripping on his own feet in his haste to pour Ivory a glass. Ghislain watches, amused, as Raphael also spills half the contents before handing it over to Ivory, red-faced and dripping. It's a small miracle how Ivory manages to keep a straight face every time this happens, Ghislain muses – he's either a master poker-face, which, alright, they knew that much about Ivory before, though Ghislain's learned to read some of the minuscule expressions that flit across his face sometimes – or he's simply not aware. Knowing Ivory, both options are equally likely.

“I'm going out,” Ghislain announces abruptly, startling the two men in the doorway as they're gazing forlornly at each other. Bastion's _sake_. Ghislain is a patient man, but even he gets antsy watching these two dance around each other.

“Out where?” Raphael asks distractedly, and Ivory's eyes follow the motion of his hands as they dance through the air in an aborted attempt at pulling Ivory's blankets tighter around him.

“To see Luv,” Ghislain grunts, bending down to take some of the walnut buns out of the oven that Raphael made and snatching one of the five baskets of strawberries that Raphael commissioned on his way out, because not even a bloody wedding cake needs that many strawberries.

“Hey, I was going to make jam out of those!” Raphael protests feebly, and gets whole-heartedly ignored in return.

Ghislain thinks he hears Ivory laugh, but that might just as well be a foreboding echo of Luvander in his head.

 

**Raphael**

 

After lunch, Raphael works in the garden with Ivory's cat scurrying about between his feet and generally making a nuisance of herself while Sebastian cuts Ivory's hair and Maxwell chats philosophy over the garden fence with a briefly visiting Balfour, who only came to return one of Raphael's books, but now seems to be quite enjoying himself with a cheese sandwich in one hand and a cup of Ivory's green tea in the other. Ivory sits very still, his hands folded in his lap and his eyes closed, lashes flicking in the unsteady sway of sunlight across his face as wisps of wet hair tumble down around his shoulders.

Earlier, he made the most pleased little noise when Raphael brought out the tea. Raphael has to bite his lip as he remembers it. He's aware that he's staring rather a lot today, and that he is probably not going to get much work done at this rate, but the sun is making him sleepy and he can't bring himself to care.

“Oh, no, I'm running late,” Balfour says woefully as Raphael is wrestling with a particularly stubborn patch of weeds. He still looks as stricken as ever at the idea of incurring Adamo's wrath, although both Ghislain and Raphael share the opinion that their old Chief Sergeant is growing soft with age nowadays while the new recruits run rampant up at the Estate. Luvander usually sides with Balfour, accusing them of pretending to be grumpy old men when actually, Luvander should have this privilege, seeing as he has two years on Raphael and one on Ghislain.

Not that any of them are all that old, strictly speaking, despite the occasional grey hair and worry line. Occupational hazard, and all that.

“Don't be a stranger, kiddo,” Raphael calls smirkingly after Balfour, who waves loosely at him with the book he was meaning to return and swiftly takes off down the path leading back to the Estate. Maxwell turns back to his brothers and rubs his big hands together in anticipation of something that Raphael can only expect to be mischievous, judging by his expression.

“That reminds me,” Maxwell says, pointing a finger at Ivory, “we brought some of your things.”

Ivory's eyes blink open fretfully and Sebastian has to hold his head still for a moment so as not to accidentally maim his ear.

“You kept my things?” Ivory asks slowly, and Raphael has finally managed to dislodge that pesky weed, so he's got a clear view of the way Maxwell's normally calm features seize up in pain for the briefest of moments before smoothing over again.

“What else would we have done with them, made a cosy little bonfire of your piano? Fed your underpants to the goats?”

Ivory glowers and purses his lips at the idea of burning a piano, and Sebastian fluffs his fingers through his freshly cut hair and declares him done, brushing off his shoulders rather roughly while Raphael is still wondering how Ivory's short hair would feel between his own fingers now.

“Good, that means we can go for a walk,” Maxwell announces, stretching so his spine pops audibly. “Did we pack his cardigan?”

Sebastian hums vague agreement as Maxwell starts rummaging around in his backpack and pulls out a few crumpled garments and what looks like a tattered old book, some incense and a pack of playing cards before issuing a muffled cry of triumph and holding up a fleece-lined cardigan that looks way too large for Ivory.

“I _have_ a cardigan,” Ivory mutters sullenly and hunches down further into what Raphael only just now realises is the same cardigan that he used to wear on Ghislain's boat after he got him out of the fishing village. His stomach feels like a small gathering of bees are buzzing happily around in it at the thought that Ivory is wearing the same garment now, and that he seems to be attached to it, if his pout and grunts of protest when Maxwell wrestles him into the warmer cardigan are any indication.

“We shan't be long,” Maxwell calls out cheerily to Raphael, who is just opening his mouth to point out that maybe Ivory isn't well enough for a walk just yet, seeing as he is leaning heavily on both of his brothers on just the short way to the gate, then closes it again when he sees Ivory's determined expression.

“Take your time,” he says instead, and goes back to wrestling with his weeds.

As predicted, they aren't long, but longer than Raphael would have expected. When they come back, Maxwell is carrying Ivory on his back and Sebastian has some wild herbs tucked behind his ear, and Raphael decides to leave his poor garden alone for the time being and goes inside to wash the dirt and sweat from his hands and face and make more tea.

He carries the tray into the living room, where Ivory has been deposited on the sofa and is being read to out of the tattered book from earlier by Maxwell, cross-legged on the floor, while Sebastian re-folds the clothes they brought and tucks some of his herbs between the layers like a pot-pourri of spring. A light rain has picked up, though the sun is still shining outside. Maxwell's low voice mixes with the raindrops like paint, and Raphael feels a tug of strange homesickness for a home he's never had when he looks at Ivory on the sofa, his eyes closed and his breathing calm and regular.

“Is he asleep?” he whispers to Sebastian, who smiles and nods, not looking up from his clothes. Raphael gently puts the tea tray on the floor between them and gets a cushion to sit on. He stirs a spoonful of honey into his tea and wraps his aching hands around it, listening to Maxwell reading children's stories to his sleeping brother and finding himself wishing that Natalia were here right now for him to lean against.

Ivory's cat sneaks soundlessly into the room, curious where everyone has gone, and settles down on the empty armchair behind Raphael with a sigh that ends in a fretful little purr.

He figures it's going to have to be enough.

 

**Ivory**

 

His brothers extend their visit until Ivory is well enough to get into a carriage and have lunch in town with them. They leave a giant basket stuffed with his favourite treats and teas, plenty of instructions on various topics ranging from his health to his relationship with Raphael, the latter of which Ivory is quite happy to ignore completely, and a standing offer to come and stay with them any time he wants. When they say goodbye, Maxwell picks Ivory up and nearly cracks his ribs hugging him, and Ivory hisses only a little bit in protest, fed-up with all the attention, but a little bit wistful at the same time that they're leaving.

“You look after yourself, cub,” Sebastian says, plopping a big wet kiss on Ivory's forehead as he holds him in a one-armed embrace. “If you get yourself killed again, we're going to set your piano on fire for real this time.”

“You wouldn't,” Ivory sniffs, half-heartedly struggling against Sebastian's iron grip. “I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you forever.”

“So basically no change to your living self, except you'd be even paler,” Max says, who is leaning in the doorway stroking his beard and waiting for Sebastian to detach himself from Ivory.

“If you need anything, let us know,” Sebastian tells Ivory for the fifth time. “Anything from home, more tea, sheet music...”

“ _Special supplies_ ,” Maxwell adds with a wink, just as Raphael stumbles past the doorway wrestling two full watering cans and a stack of empty flowerpots.

“For sex,” Sebastian feels the need to clarify, even though Ivory is perfectly aware what they're talking about. It's not the first time they've broached the topic within hearing distance of Raphael, and Ivory rolls his eyes, swallowing down hot shame and making sure to step hard on Sebastian's foot when he finally lets him go.

“Well, better be off then,” Max says, for what must be the hundredth time today, and they both hug Ivory once again before picking up their luggage and walking down the gravel path with sprightly steps, waving over their shoulders until they fall out of sight past the gates. Ivory feels the glaring sun like pinpricks in his eyes and suddenly yearns for them to come back one last time, hug him one last time, tell him one last time to keep in touch and take care of himself and get into Raphael's pants already.

“Alright, Airman?”

Ivory startles and looks up in the other direction of the path, where Adamo is leaning on the fence with muddy boots and a pinkish, bloodied compress on his arm, sleeves rolled back, a characteristic curl of smoke rising from the wound underneath that Ivory recognises from his days with Cassiopeia.

“Where did you get that,” he asks sharply, and Adamo shrugs and opens his mouth to say something, but his voice chokes off at the last moment, and he grimaces.

“Can't tell you,” he says gruffly, the same as Raphael did when Ivory asked what they were doing on the Estate. Something coils like twine and bitter leaves in Ivory's stomach, and he squashes it angrily, squeezing out the last of the corroding, poisonous hope that maybe, somehow, their dragons survived.

“How about a little walk,” Adamo suggests gently, in the tone of voice that Ivory's only ever heard him use a couple of times with Balfour when Amery's death had still been fresh and festering among them, and with Proudmouth when she was too riled up after a raid. He nods anyway, and the two of them set off at a brisk pace across the meadow, slowing down when Adamo notices that Ivory is breathing hard and struggling to keep up. Ivory grits his teeth, but doesn't say anything.

“Not sure if you'll be able to see 'em, mind you,” Adamo mutters cryptically as they approach the Estate. The weather is humid and damply grey, like wet wool hanging heavy over the sky, shot through with sunlight holes, and Ivory is sweat-soaked and chilled to the bone by the time Adamo leads him through a door and down a gloomy corridor, and another, and another, until Ivory loses track.

“Here we are. Easy now.”

Adamo pulls out a heavy set of keys, unlocks two doors, and then they're standing in the courtyard, white sunlight polished like a blade, and Ivory has to blink his eyes several times until the shapes in the air make any sense.

The first thing he recognises is the gleam of white scales, like his Cassie had on her belly, and then something seizes up in his brain and he has to sit down.

 

**Adamo**

 

It's not a surprise when Ivory collapses, and Adamo has the presence of mind to grab hold of his jacket and keep him from cracking his head open on the cobblestones. The kids are crowding around them and Adamo has Balfour help him prop Ivory up against a wall back inside the building, next to a sconce with brightly dancing fire.

“It's alright,” Adamo tells Ivory, who is stirring feebly, “you'll be good as new in no time. It's just the Lady Antoinette's curse, I reckon. There, up you go.”

Ivory opens his eyes with a gasp and lurches forward, but Adamo keeps his hand fisted in the back of his jacket, and Balfour scurries off to get him something to drink while the rest of them dutifully file back outside to check on the girls when Adamo barks at them to get lost.

“They're -” Ivory says, gulping air like water, but he can't finish, which is how Adamo knows that Antoinette's magic was effective.

“What's left of them, yes,” Adamo grunts. “They're different, though. Nothing of your girl in them to speak of anymore, nothing whole, anyway. Got it?”

He shakes Ivory a bit, and Ivory looks keening and sad for a moment, but then he nods, shivering, and Adamo lets him go and awkwardly pats his shoulder.

“Good boy,” he says, “now get up, I gotta get you back to the cottage or Raphael's going to have my hide.”

They meet Balfour in the hallway, who makes Ivory drink some water and then leaves them to join the others, and then Adamo walks Ivory back down the winding path, keeping a close eye on him in case the fainting was because he's still weak after all. Ivory is frowning at the ground, clearly chewing on some unwieldy thoughts, and Adamo leaves him to it, inhaling the wet leathery air and watching the cottage loom up out of the mist. They make it past the little patch where Raphael wants to grow pumpkins in autumn, scaring a small flock of crows with their sudden appearance, and then Ivory stops and says “thank you,” and Adamo is briefly tempted to pull him into a hug.

“Never you mind,” he growls, “you don't know the half of it, but I can't tell you more 'n that. Go put your Raphael at ease, he must be frantic with worry at your absence.”

Ivory's mouth forms the silent words “my Raphael” like a reflex, and he looks at Adamo with bright, steady eyes, blueish smudges underneath and a small flexing of veins just visible through his pale skin.

“He cares for you, son,” Adamo makes himself say, grudgingly, because he hates getting involved in these sorts of affairs. He's had a lifetime's share of being entangled in Royston's various ill-advised trysts and inevitable heartbreak, and he's always kept well clear of his boys' downtime activities where he could when they were all still cooped up in the Airman and the reception room off the common area had never been quite as private as some of them seemed to think it was. Or maybe they were well aware, which is even more disturbing to Adamo, but in any case, it is their business, not his, so long as they keep their hands off of important diplomat's wives' expensive behinds, and that particular mess had mainly been poor Thom's to sort out, not his.

“I care for him, too,” Ivory now says, his voice shaky and translucent in the clammy air as he wraps his arms around himself to stave off the chill, or perhaps to protect himself from something bigger than that.

“I know,” Adamo sighs, feeling weary of all these things circling like vultures over all of their heads ever since the war now, things that had to be protected against with all that is left to them, a few teeth and dragon claws, still hot from the fire but bent beyond recognition. “But does he know it, too?”

Ivory doesn't reply, and Adamo considers his job done and begins the walk back up to the Estate.

 

**Raphael**

 

“I saw them,” Ivory says over dinner that night, tiredly propped up on the kitchen bench and poking his fork repeatedly into his last slice of Raphael's mushroom pie.

“Saw whom?” Raphael asks distractedly. His eyes stray over to an old recipe book that he borrowed from his mother's kitchen on his last visit, the one where she hadn't known yet that Raphael was alive rather than missing in action, as they'd first called it after the war when a rider's dragon was still unaccounted for and no body turned up in the prison that Rook and some of the others were held in.

They'd found Cassie's parts, though, so Ivory was declared dead long before Raphael returned from his own special brand of death.

“At the Estate,” Ivory says into the silence, and it sounds like he's struggling to make any words at all. Raphael blinks at him, mouthing strangled things without ever saying them out loud, and shares a look with Ghislain, who clears his throat and takes another slice of mushroom pie.

“You mean the,” Raphael says, “what's up there?”

Ivory nods and spoons the mess of his last forkful of pie neatly into his mouth, then, to Raphael's surprise, also takes a second slice.

“That's good. So now you know.”

“Now I know,” Ivory agrees, and they don't talk about it anymore for the remainder of their meal, and when they're done, Ivory wordlessly clears the table and Ghislain does the dishes, and Raphael is struck by the hysterical thought that such a scene would have been quite impossible back at the Airman, where the kitchen was always a mess no one felt responsible for cleaning up, except for Thom, maybe, and sometimes Raphael when he wanted to cook something and couldn't find a clean enough surface to cut his vegetables on.

“Remember that talent Niall had, for conjuring the most amazing, lavish breakfasts when the kitchen was nothing but a gross pile of rotting food and burnt pans,” Raphael says idly, leaning his forehead on the window pane and peering out into the unruly darkness. Rain skitters like spiders' legs over the glass outside and he shudders – spiders have never been his thing.

Over by the sink, Ivory stiffens as he dries the last plate, but Ghislain chuckles and drains the sink with a hum.

“And then he ate them all by himself in the common room, grinning like a loon,” he grunts, shaking his head to himself. “It made Luvander so angry.”

“Luvander was always angry at Niall for something,” Ivory says, and Raphael looks up, surprised. So far, Ivory never said a single word about any of their fallen or absent comrades. After moving to the cottage, Raphael and Ghislain had soon discovered that talking about them was the only way for them to grieve, a way to revive their spirits once again, if only for a short while, and let them linger in the warm afterglow of shared memories, but Raphael can understand that it might be different for some people, and had assumed that Ivory needed more time.

“Knowing him, he still is,” Ghislain mutters now. “Pretty sure the last time we went out and got him drunk, he was shouting some abuse about Niall pansying out of their competition by getting himself killed, wasn't he, Raph?”

“Mm,” Raphael agrees lightly, “don't forget the part where he cried about Niall's pretty lips and what a waste it was that they were dead.”

He and Ghislain laugh, but Raphael stops when Ivory looks slightly shell-shocked, and gets up to subtly reach around Ivory for the teapot and brush his hand over his elbow in the process.

“You should come with us some time,” he murmurs over the clink of the lid as he opens the pot and shakes tea leaves inside. “We've all been there, trust me. It's... liberating.”

Ghislain coughs, and Raphael has to step on his toes a little to keep him from telling Ivory that Raphael has indeed been there, repeatedly, when they still thought Ivory was dead, sobbing over a song that someone was playing on the piano in the corner of their favourite bar, or drunkenly slurring over the lines of a poem about lost love and brave heroes that his inebriated mind could only half remember. Ivory doesn't need to know about that, and besides, in those first few months, Raphael cried over a lot of things – spilled tea, shrivelled up tomato plants, a leaky sink in the bathroom, Balfour's hands and Luvander's scar. He has always been an easy crier, airman or not, and coming back from the dead hasn't changed that one bit.

“I don't drink,” Ivory says slowly, “but watching Luvander lose his composure and verbal abuse of the dead sounds tempting, so I reckon I'll come anyway.”

A small smile blooms on his face, and Raphael feels like his heart is burrowing into his stomach and wrapping itself up in the layers of his intestines like crepe paper, tight and snug like a nesting bird.

“Right,” he says, “great. I mean, great.”

Ivory keeps smiling and fishes two mugs out of the cupboard with long, elegant fingers, and when Raphael turns around to ask Ghislain if he wants some as well, he discovers that Ghislain is gone.

 

**Ghislain**

 

“They were asleep on the sofa when I left,” Ghislain tells Luvander, one arm wrapped comfortably around Luvander's dainty shoulders and his other hand spreading Luvander's fingers out in front of his face to inspect the newest damage: pinpricks from wayward pins and needles, small burns from his infernal shitty upstairs oven, paper-cuts and ink stains, a random collection of proof that Luvander is living his life nowadays instead of refusing to get out of bed and wallowing in self pity and the sour smell of unwashed sheets. Ghislain's been there for that, now he's here for the part where Luvander has to pick up the bits and pieces and patchwork them together into something new, a life after death, and he's not planning on leaving any time soon.

“Believe it or not, but they were cuddling,” Ghislain continues, his nose pressed into Luvander's temple now and his hand still curled around Luvander's. Luvander gasps, and tangles their fingers together, squeezing hard.

“What, like this?” he asks sweetly, wriggling around in the space underneath Ghislain's arm until he's tucked right into Ghislain's side like a squirmy icicle. They are sitting on the floor of Luvander's tiny flat, squashed in between the wall and the rickety table, with Martine the mask watching serenely over them from her spot above the table. The remains of a small supper are spread out around them like some bizarre indoor picnic: apple cores, sandwich crumbs, empty cups of wine and the half demolished last slice of Raphael's mushroom pie.

Luvander will be wanting dessert soon.

“More like this,” Ghislain hums into Luvander's hair and tumbles him gracelessly into his lap. Luvander giggles, a wine infused blush high on his cheeks, his winter green eyes dancing like foam on waves, and Ghislain thinks he might want to go on another journey soon, see if he can't find Luvander a project of his own, now that Raphael is all set.

Or, perhaps, one for the Chief, who must be getting restless with only four well-behaved kids to look after now instead of thirteen rowdy airmen.

“Do you think they'll be alright?” Luvander muses, sobering up a little as he puts his head on Ghislain's massive shoulder and sighs. Ghislain wraps his arms around him like he used to in those early days after he'd pulled Luvander from the fire, bleeding and writhing in agony, his scarf drenched in blood. They'd had to throw it away. To this day, Luvander is still inconsolable about that scarf, and Ghislain is forever keeping his eyes peeled for a similar one in the market.

“Yes,” he says firmly, “course they will be. All of us, hey?”

Luvander nods.

“All of us,” he agrees, and smiles.


End file.
